Frost
by colormetheworld
Summary: Frost is gone. His family has to come to terms. Pretty heavy, so take that into account before you read.


"I want to see daddy!"

It's been almost a week since he's asked, the longest stretch yet, and Jane had fooled herself into thinking that he was growing out of the phase. Stupid, she curses herself, feeling her wife turn back to the bed. Stupid. It's not a phase.

He's not going to grow out of it.

Maura's hand squeezes Jane's for a split second, and then she is heading back to the bed, reaching into the shelf of the headboard to pull out the little photo album that's stored there.

"Okay, honey," Maura says lightly, settling herself next to their son on his bed. "Do you want to start from the beginning?"

"No!" He cries happily, leaning against her. "Go from when Toph gets born!"

Jane doesn't have to look to know that Maura is smiling. She wonders how it is possible. She feels like she's going to pass out.

"Okay," Maura says, and she flips through the pages of the book. "Okay… There! Look, sweetheart! There's Mommy and Mama and Daddy! All on the way to the hospital to welcome Topher into our life."

Jane chances a look over her shoulder at her wife and her son, snuggled together on the bed, the little boy's face lit with excitement. She feels tears burn her eyes almost instantly, and she turns back to the door, hoping that neither mother nor son will miss her.

But she is not lucky tonight. "Mama!" Topher cries. "Mama, come tell me a story about daddy!"

Jane does not want her little boy to see her cry. She doesn't turn around.

"Uh...Mommy's got it tonight, baby, okay?" She calls over her shoulder. "I'll do a story about Daddy another night."

There is a brief pause in which Jane can feel her son's disappointment and her wife's disapproval like twin weights on her shoulders, and then, "promise, Mama?" Topher's voice remains hopeful. "Promise you'll tell a story about Daddy tomorrow?"

Jane nods, knowing she's made this promise before and her son has forgotten.

"I promise."

…

"_We need to talk, Jay." _

"_Okay...shoot." _

"_I...I think that you...I mean...If Maura and you have decided that...What I mean is, I don't think that I can…" _

"_Woah, woah, Frost. You know it's too late to change your mind right? I mean...I guess it's not technically too late, but-" _

"_No. It's nothing like that, I haven't changed my mind. I just think...you're going to carry, right?" _

"_That, as of now, is the plan, yes. But you have input too, Frost. I don't want you to think that-" _

"_I don't think we should be partners. When you get pregnant. After. I don't think we should work together." _

"_...What?" _

"_When you're pregnant, and after... I-I don't want us to be partners. I don't think we should be partners anymore." _

"_And what the hell is that about? You think I'll get weak?" _

"_No!"  
"What, you think I won't have your back, Frost? You think that I would be too slow and hormonal to have your back in dangerous situations?" _

"_NO!" _

"_Then what is it Frost? Please tell me! I'm dying to know why you all of a sudden seem to have jumped on the sexist pig bandwagon. Thinking that I can't so the same goddamn things that I've always-" _

"_JANE! Shut up, you idiot. I don't think you wouldn't be just about the scariest pregnant cop I've ever seen. Us not being partners has nothing to do with how you'll act. I don't want to be partners with you because if we go into a dangerous situation, we might not come out. And I don't want my kid losing both his parents that way. I don't want us both gone and there's nothing he can do about it. We minimize those odds if we're apart." _

"_...Oh." _

"_Yeah." _

"_Well...shit, Frost. I don't want to work with anyone else." _

"_I know. Me neither. But you have to admit it makes sense." _

"_Yeah...Damnit. It does." _

"_...You really thought I'd think you couldn't hold your own as a pregnant detective?" _

"_...No...maybe...I don't know. This whole thing has my head spinning. You agreeing. Maura thinking I should carry...the whole thing is…" _

"_Crazy." _

"_Yeah. I'm sorry, Barry. I didn't mean to go off on you like that…"  
"S'okay, Jay...Hormones right? You can't help it." _

"_Shut it. Pig." _

…

"You cannot keep doing that."

Maura's angry voice shakes Jane from her memories, and she turns to see her wife coming into the kitchen, light eyes flashing.

"What?" Jane asks, though she knows playing dumb has never worked with her wife.  
"You know very well what, Jane Rizzoli. Avoiding your son and his questions. You cannot keep sidestepping, Jane. It is not fair to him, and it is not fair to me."  
"What?" This catches Jane off guard. "What are you talking about?"

Maura makes an irritated gesture, stepping into the kitchen. "I can't keep doing this on my own!" she cries. "I miss him too, Jane! You think it's easy for me to sit there every night by myself and look at pictures of the three of us? Look at pictures of that man holding his son, and wonder what he was thinking? When he decided that we weren't enough? If there was something I could have done to…"

"Stop," Jane says, turning away. "Stop it. I can't Maura. I can't do it."

"I can't do it alone," Maura says again.

"But you can _do it, _Maura. You can do it! You put together that book, and you let him get it out whenever he wants. You tell him all these stories like...like it doesn't even…"  
Maura's eyes have narrowed to slits, and Jane breaks off, shaking her head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she says quietly. "How could we not-"

"Like it doesn't even what, Jane?" Maura cuts her off, voice low and deadly. "Like it doesn't even bother me?"

Jane rubs a hand over her eyes. "Maura," she begins, but the doctor cuts her off again, advancing.

"No," she says, taking another step forward. "No. Say it. I guess it's time that you finally admitted it."

"Admit what?" Jane asks incredulously, and Maura laughs, though the sound is anything but humorous.

"Admit that you don't think Barry's death affected me the same way it affected you. That you think I just bounced back right after the funeral and went on with my life without another moment's thought about any of it."

She pauses, waiting to see if Jane is going to contradict her, but the brunette leans back heavily against the kitchen counter and says nothing.

"Don't be such a coward," Maura snarls, "admit it!"

Jane opens her mouth to contradict her wife. To tell her that she knows that Maura hurts just as much as she does. What comes out is. "You went back to work two weeks early."

Maura looks stunned, and then she looks hurt, and then she looks more furious than Jane has ever seen her.

Jane knows why. She shakes her head, turning away. "That's not what I meant."

"Oh, isn't it?"

"No. It's not, Maura. You know it's not-"

"It's not what you meant, Jane? Are you sure? You didn't mean to call me unfeeling? You didn't mean to call me clinical and frigid?"

"Maura," Jane says, shutting her eyes.

But Maura's voice rises, making Jane go silent again. "You didn't mean to imply that I am devoid of any type of emotional reactions, and you certainly didn't mean to lump yourself in with the other detectives at work who wonder if I'm a robot underneath my skin? Who whisper that you had to carry our son because I am all gears and mechanisms."  
"Maura," Jane feels her anger dissipating as her wife continues talking, her voice threatening to crack.

"You think I don't hear them? You think that I am deaf, Jane?"

"I gave Crowe a black eye for saying that, Maur."  
"And you think that makes it better? You think it makes it better that you'll stand up for me, but that you secretly feel the same way?"

"I _don'_t think that about you, Maur. I know that Frost's...that his death hit you hard too, I just-"

"Then why won't you let me be there for you?" Maura bursts out, and Jane stares at her, dumbfounded.

"What?"

"You think I don't hear you crying? Still? Most nights? In the shower when you think I'm downstairs? On the back on the squad car while you wait for your latest partner to have a quick smoke. You think I don't see you, Jane? You think I don't long to come up to you and take you in my arms and…"

"You're not supposed to see that," Jane says. Anger and guilt and shame are welling up inside of her. Her hands start to itch. She needs to get out of there.

"Why?" Maura asks, her eyes wide with anger and fear. "Why aren't I privy to my wife's deepest feelings. Why can't I comfort her?"  
Jane shakes her head, running both her hands through her hair. When Maura steps closer to her, she backs away.  
Hazel eyes flash. "You're so selfish," she hisses.

Jane feels like there's a knife in her ribcage. "_I'm _selfish."

"Yes," Maura says, before Jane can get any other words out. "_You're_ selfish. We are _all hurting, _Jane. We ALL miss him. Even Topher in his own way. And I am trying to keep him alive in the only way possible, and all you want to do is drown in your grief."

"That's not what I'm doing."

"That's what you're doing."

Jane turns away from Maura, and her eyes fall on the back door, her baseball bat and glove lying carelessly near by.

"You run from me. You hide from me. You hide from Topher, and your mother, and Robin. You think that this pain is yours to bear alone."

The back door. Freedom.

"But it is not! If you think that I am too robotic to share in your-"

Jane spins, sure by the look on Maura's face that she looks deranged. She doesn't care. "YOU REALLY THINK THAT'S WHAT I'M THINKING? THAT YOU WON'T BE THERE FOR ME IF I NEED YOU?"

Maura opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

"YOU REALLY THINK I'M THAT...SELFISH AND SHALLOW AND…" She stops, thinking of Christopher. Not wanting to wake him.

"I am not going to kill myself," she says slowly, quietly, trying to keep her voice under control.

Maura looks shocked and confused. "What?"

"I'm not going to kill myself. I am going to be here for you, and my son. I am going to be here for you two as long as I possibly can. I'm not going anywhere. I need Robin, and Ma, and Frankie and Tommy to know this...but mostly I need you and Toph to know it. And if I have to cry in the shower, or out behind a fucking squad car, where you can't see me, so that you and he can continue to feel safe with me, then that's what I'm going to do."

Maura stares. Jane shakes her head.

"He threw this whole god damn family off kilter, Maura. He made my son, _our four year old son_, worry about the strength and mortality of his parents. And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that you and he never have to worry about that with me. Not ever."

And not waiting for Maura to respond, Jane spins, grabbing the baseball bat from beside the door, and pushes out into the night.

…...

"_Do you think about him? When you're out there in the field?" _

"_Topher? Of course I do." _

"_That perp who pulled the knife on you the other day. He could have slit your throat." _

"_Nah, I had the drop on him. He wasn't going anywhere." _

"_But he __could__ have, Jane. He could have gotten you." _

"_...Yeah...I guess...What's up Frost?"  
"I've been thinking about it a lot about what could happen to us out there." _

"_We put in for a partner change, like you wanted, Frost...is that what this is about? Cavenaugh said it might take-" _

"_Do you ever just watch him sleep?" _

"_Cavenaugh?" _

"_No, you idiot, your son. Do you ever just watch him sleeping?" _

"_...He's your son too, Frost. Maura and I love that you see him sometimes. We decided we wanted you in his life when we decided we wanted you as our donor. He's your son too." _

"_I was watching him sleep, last week, when you two were out on your date. He looked so sweet and calm. He doesn't know anything about the trash we see everyday." _

"_Calm and serene, wait until it's four in the morning and he won't stop screaming. You'll trade him for the interrogation room in a heartbeat." _

"_I wouldn't trade him for anything, Jane." _

"_It-it was a joke, Frost. I was just kidding." _

"_You should be more careful out there. We should all be more careful. Maura too." _

"_Hey, Barry, I'm careful. You know I am. And you know that when you start second guessing yourself out in the field, that's when the mistakes happen." _

"_So you can just wipe Christopher from your mind when you go after some perp. Is that what you're saying?"_

"_You know it's not...Frost. Barry. What the hell. What is going on?" _

"_Nothing. Nothing. Forget I said anything." _

"_Are you thinking about giving your badge back? Even that won't keep you completely sa-" _

"_I said forget it, Jane. Just never mind." _

"_Frost." _

"_I-I'm going down to the archive room. See if we can get anything on the Paley case. I'll let you know if I find anything."  
"Frost." _

"_I'll let you know, Jane."_

…

She doesn't register that she's in the cemetery until she's coming right up on his gravestone. She doesn't realize that she's still holding tight to the baseball bat until she's bringing it around. Until it connects with the base of the maple tree that shades her best friends resting spot. Pain ricochets up into her elbows at the contact, but she pulls back and swings again. And then again.

"You bastard," she says, between gritted teeth. "

She stops for a moment and faces his grave, breathing hard. _I want to see Daddy,_ Christopher would ask, and Maura would retrieve a book.

An album of pictures. Frost in his uniform, getting his detective's badge. Frost and Jane and Frankie in BPD t-shirts, sweaty smiling at the camera after a basketball game.

Frost holding Topher on his first birthday, their matching grins and crinkled eyes turned towards the lens.

_Isn't it odd? _She remembers Frost saying. _How he looks like me and Maura and you. All at once? _And Jane had thought of her son's brown curly hair and his mocha colored skin and green brown eyes.

_Odd and wonderful_, she'd replied.

He'd been there for two, as well. And just barely for three, though the pictures from that party already seemed tinged with a sort of melancholy sepia. He'd gone less than three months later, on an unseasonably cold and blustery day in May.

_I want to see daddy! _Her son would say. And he wouldn't get a phone call or a post card. No one would come and take him to the zoo, or put an oversized Sox cap on his head at a father/son baseball game.

No. Her son would get his father in a book. Two dimensional. Unchanging.

Anger wells up in Jane's chest again, and she turns away from Frost's grave so she can swing at the tree again. She swings and swings, even when she can't see for the tears in her eyes, and when the bat finally cracks, she sinks to her knees, still holding the ruined handle.

.

She's aware that the words coming out of her mouth now are not so much words as they are long hoarse sobs.

How could you. How could you do this to me? How could you do this to your son? How could you do this to your _family?_

She hears leaves and twigs crunch behind her, but she is not afraid. It could be the Grim Reaper himself and she would not be afraid.

Besides, it's just Maura. Maura coming up behind her and draping a sweatshirt over her shoulders, even though the night is too mild for a chill. Maura saying her name, brushing her hair away from her face. Maura saying, "Honey, I'm so sorry."

In truth, it's been almost a year since Frost took his own life. Jane got a new partner. And then another. Sniveling little rookies who couldn't hold a gun the right way and averted their eyes out of cowardice, or deference or something else that she couldn't name and didn't want to talk about. She knows they talk about her in the cafeteria. She knows that the compliments they bestow upon her are tinged with pity.

She hates them for it.

None of them are Frost.

"He's got so many questions," Jane says, unsure if she's talking about Topher or herself. "He's just going to get more questions."

Maura nods. "Yes," she says simply. "It is a natural part of growing up."

Jane looks at the broken baseball bat, and then at the grave. She looks at her hands, pale and shaking in the oncoming darkness.

"Who's with him?" She asks.

"I called Robin," Maura answers without missing a beat. "She was happy to come fill in for a little bit."

Jane wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and then drags her fingers through her hair. "I want him to see her more often," she says, aware that her voice sounds argumentative.

Maura doesn't rise to meet her anger. "Okay," she says simply.

Jane looks at her, meaning to glare, meaning to accuse her of indifference and robotic calm, but finds that she cannot. She lets her breath out in a harsh puff, hoping it will dispel some of the tightness in her chest.

"How do you do it?" She asks finally, and Maura takes a step closer to her.

"Do what?" she asks.

"How do you sit there, night after night, and tell him those stories about his father. How can you flip through those pages without feeling…without…"Jane shakes her head, trying not to give in to a new round of tears.

In the support group she'd been forced to attend, the lead counselor had spoken about the stages of grieving, pointing out each one drawn on the whiteboard like a stair step, and reminding them how one could only achieve acceptance by passing through each emotion, making peace with it, and moving on.

"You got to acceptance," Jane chokes, bending to pick up the broken pieces of baseball bat. "I'm still trying to get out of denial and isolation and into anger."

Maura makes a sound that could be a laugh. "I think you got to anger tonight, Jane," she says softly, bending to pick up bat pieces as well. "How are your hands?"

"Shaking."

Maura tucks the piece of wood in the crook of her arm, and reaches out her hands for Jane, who slides her shaking fingers into the doctor's palms.  
"I haven't" she says, her eyes still on Jane's hands, "gotten there yet."

"Huh?"

"To acceptance," Maura clarifies. "I think that telling Christopher about his father, and looking at those pictures every night...I think that's my way of bargaining. If I keep saying his name. If I keep talking about it...he hasn't really gone."

Jane pulls in a breath that she can't let out.

Maura rubs her hands. "Jane," she says firmly. "I need you to promise me something."

Jane shuts her eyes against the guilt already building in her chest. "I'm sorry for running out, Maur. I promise I'm okay. That I wouldn't do anything stupid...I-"

"No," Maura says quickly. "No it's not that."

Jane opens her eyes, "Then what?"

"I need to see your pain," Maura says quietly, her eyes falling back down to Jane's hands. "I know you want to make Topher and I feel safe. I know you think that trying to prove how tough you are is how you think you can do that...but...honey, Barry held pain away from all of us. _None_ of us knew what was happening in his head. And I can't live with knowing that you are hiding yourself from me too, Jane. I can't live like that."

Jane is silent, trying to absorb all of Maura's words. Trying to believe her. "I want to be there for you," she says finally. "I want to show you and Topher that not everyone leaves."

"So show me by trusting that I will be there when you think you're going to come apart."

"I don't want you to worry-"

But Maura makes a disgruntled noise and slides her hands up Jane's arms and then around her back. Holding her close.

"Unfortunately, Jane...You don't have any control over what I worry about. _I_ don't have much control over it, when it comes down to it. And so you just...you have to help me."

And Jane wraps her arms around the smaller woman and buries her face in the light brown curls and the base of Maura's neck.

"I...I could tell him how his father took down a bouncer four times his size. Made it look like nothing. Like cake."  
She feels Maura smile. "He would love that, I think."

"I-I might cry."

Maura gives Jane a squeeze. "That's perfectly normal and okay."

"What if Topher asks why I'm crying?"  
Maura's smile is kind, and not teasing at all. "Then we will explain it to him."  
"I'm still so angry at him Maura. I miss him so much, but I'm so, so angry."

Maura pulls away and takes Jane's hand. She tugs it in the direction of home. "I know, honey," she says softly. "That's normal and okay too."

They begin walking home through the darkened cemetery, Jane still with the handle of the bat in her hands. "Maur?"

"Anything."

"Stay with me?"

Maura's smile is just visible in the light of the moon.  
"Always."


End file.
